Joe Allen draws a blank

ALAN FRAME laments the eviction of his favourite London restaurant

What, I wonder, would the late great Terry Evans make of it?
He certainly wouldn’t approve, that’s for sure.

His second home, Joe Allen, has been forced to find a new
venue after 40 years in its Exeter Street, Covent Garden basement, thanks to a
successful bid by Robert De Niro to turn the building housing Joe’s into the
Wellington Hotel, the latest boutique joint for the West End.

Like everything, we will all get used to it, but for now it
seems inconceivable that London’s only real New York diner will in future not
be quite the same. As one who has been a regular since it opened, modelled
exactly on the original of the same name on West 46th Street, the
place (crammed with theatre posters and black and white photographs of the
stars, the long bar, TV at one end showing continuous movies from the Thirties,
the brick walls and the open kitchen) has been a magical setting for so many of
us.

And the fact that it opens all day made it a firm favourite
with Fleet Street as much as it did with actors and their ilk. We could drink
there when the pubs were closed and if you asked for ‘some blanks’ the lovely
staff would oblige. These blanks, you may remember, were the small pieces of
thin cardboard on which Joe’s would fill in the bill total in pencil. Well, I
ask you – in pencil? It hardly needed a hardened criminal mind to work out that
half a dozen blanks filled in by even the least imaginative of expenses
claimants could add considerably to one’s income. Even placing a nought at the
end of the total would reap its reward though discretion was advised. It was all
right if the bill was, say, for drinks only and came to £17 but not if the
original total was £80. You would be hard pressed to spend £800 at Joe’s even
if entertaining the Band of the Coldstream Guards. There were other tricks: a
one became a seven and a three was transformed into an eight. And so on.

But one had to be a little cautious or at least sensible.
The only thing printed on those small pieces of cardboard was a serial number so
a handful of blanks, if from the same batch, would show consecutive numbers. Alas,
one of our colleagues was foolish enough to put in Joe Allen bills, one a week,
for six weeks of exes claims. Not surprisingly the miscreant was summoned by
that nice Mr Coupar who began the interview by commiserating that custom at
Joe’s had fallen off so alarmingly. ‘No it hasn’t’, came the reply only for the
managing editor to point out that for six weeks this person had been the only
customer of the normally packed restaurant. She left the Express not long
afterwards.

Joe’s was where I was first introduced to the delights of a
Perfect Manhattan on a little mound of crushed ice. Thank you Geoffrey Compton!
In the early days, just as now, many of the waiting staff were drama students,
extras and ‘resting’ actors and fabulous they are. I have been served by Graham
Norton – but not in that way dear…

And while one hardly blinks when the famous of Luvvieland
are dining there, I do remember feeling very sad to see the late Robert
Stephens, after his marriage to Maggie Smith and before his knighthood, sitting
alone at the table next to us one Sunday, much the worse for wear.

As a proud member of the World’s Greatest Lunch Club, which
celebrates its 10th anniversary next June, the move will be a wrench
because Joe’s has been our venue on every occasion except one. It will be
strange to leave our own table (near the bar it has to be said) where we even
have a photograph of us at play hanging on the adjacent wall, brass plaque and
all.

But the delicious Cathy Winn, ever cheerful and efficient
manager of the restaurant tells me: “It’ll take more than a wannabe film icon to stop us. We will relocate
dramatically darling, I’m booking you in to carry your table to an appropriate
nook. Meanwhile it’s business as usual.”

I started
this by mentioning our very much missed chum Terry Evans. He ate there more
than any of us and of course was a distinguished member of the WGLC. When he
finally retired as picture editor of the Sunday Express he held his farewell
do, needless to say, at Joe’s. And when he left us far too soon, we had an
excellent and very long memorial lunch at his favourite
restaurant.

Next time
you are there, go to the back of the main dining area and you will find a
plaque, marking his (or rather his employer’s) great generosity over the years
and inscribed simply ‘Sir Terry Evans’.

I think we
can be sure that Cathy will see to it that this small tribute to a great man
will be on the wall of Joe’s new berth.